The price is right (8) , by dutchbuffy2305
Rating: R
Timeline: Season 7, AU after Showtime, some spoilers of eps after that
Summary: How to get everything back former goddess Artemis took in exchange for the girls?
Disclaimer: All Joss's
Feedback: Yes please, to dutchbuffy2305@yahoo.co.uk
Being woken up by an elbow in the nose was not how Spike had expected waking up in his Slayer's bed the first time. He sat up.
"Buffy?" he said groggily, holding his nose with one hand to catch the precious blood.
"Sorry, Spike," Buffy said with a sheepish look. "I guess I forgot I wasn't alone. I was just stretching."
There was a silence.
"Um. Tissue?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
Spike resisted the urge to lick his fingers. He knew she'd think it was gross. When she turned her head to throw the tissue away, he quickly licked his fingers anyway. A pity to waste it.
He smiled at her innocently when she settled herself back in the pillows.
Buffy made a face. "Um, Spike, you've got blood on your front teeth." She pointed.
"Yes, love; even after a hundred and twenty years without a mirror, I do sort of remember where my front teeth are." Where had that come from? He was feeling unreasonably cranky. Never mind. Don't waste a moment in bed with your favorite Slayer. He went in for a kiss. Buffy could fuck the crankiness out of him, if he could get her to move on a little from the lovey-dovey mushy stuff she'd insisted on last night.
Buffy leaned back from him and held him a way from her face with a strong Slayer arm. "Teeth. Blood on them. Ew? Brush first?"
Spike exploded. "Are you forgetting I'm a vampire? Damn right there is blood on my teeth! And on my tongue and my back molars as well, for God's sake!" He flung the sheets off him with an angry flourish and stalked over to his jeans. Hopping on one foot to get them on, he continued over his shoulder "Not to mention the blood on my hands, huh! Out damned spot, out! You knew I was a vampire, why are you kidding yourself? Go play normal girl with someone else, please!"
He couldn't find his shirt and didn't fell like hanging around to lace his boots so he just scooped them up, located his coat and prepared to hurtle out the door and slam it. Buffy was blocking the door, damn it, and he didn't mind that one bit. A good fight was just what he needed. His hands were full of coat and boots so she got just a fraction of a head start on him and put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him softly on his blood stained lips.
"I'm sorry," she said "Nothing about you squicks me. Come back to bed."
Spike was floored. Still dropping soft, fluttering kisses on his lips, she moved them both gently backwards until the bed hit him in the back of his knees and he landed on the softness of her mattress. Hot pricking tears flooded his eyes and nose and he almost hated how he could be more easily undone by kindness than by blows. He turned his face in the pillow to hide the weak sniveling but Buffy was on it, too. She grabbed his chin and turned his face back, deliberately kissing the tear that was sliding into his ear.
"Spike. We'll deal, okay?
He expected to get undressed roughly and ridden hard, but Buffy was full of surprises this morning. She did undress him, but without roughness or popping buttons, and she snuggled up against him and pulled the sheet back over them.
"This is nice, isn't it? Just cuddling?"
Spike nodded, snaking his arms around her warm, velvety body more securely. He definitely wasn't himself anymore. The uncontrolled emotions side of his personality was gaining the upper hand, and his temper was pretty short this morning, too. Without the soul, there was just more of everything, he guessed; all the emotions being magnified and spilling out with very little control. He had to work on that, not get riled up so easily. Buffy sighed a warm sigh against his neck and nibbled a bit of skin just below his ear. The deep thrill of joy that coursed through him at the small caress was probably more than a human being felt, too. There was a lot of good in being a vampire, even if the last years had tended to make him forget that. Her hair smelled of shampoo and Buffy, her skin tasted of salt and the last remnants of some kind of pale green cream she'd slathered on last night.
That had been wonderful. He'd been in bed already, a little tired but in a comfortable way, and watched Buffy prepare herself for the night. His respect for her had mounted. All that work every night at bedtime, and still time to do slaying and a job and save the world? There had been the hundred brushstrokes. He'd expected that, no woman of his acquaintance had ever gone without. His mother, Dru, Harmony, and now Buffy. But after that there had been the rubbing of oil in dry ends; two kinds of night cream (one for the eyes and one for the rest); hand cream, body lotion, flossing, eyebrow-plucking. Not necessarily in that order. And he knew that in the bathroom she'd showered, shaved her legs and armpits and her bikini-line as well.
They'd made slow, gentle love. After a bit, Buffy's natural smells had started to come through again and he had tried for something a little less slow and gentle, but Buffy hadn't wanted to play. Still scared of her dark side coming through, he assumed. He'd have to show her that he didn't mind Buffy hurting him one bit, that as long as she loved him, he could take anything she dished out. Falling asleep spooned to her hot sleepy body slowing down for the night was heaven.
Buffy nibbled his earlobe softly and he growled involuntarily, his back arching off the bed. Harder, he thought. Would she wig if he said it?
"Harder," he murmured into her ear. "Bite me."
Buffy growled back, which shot delicious shivers down his spine, and she started biting the edge of his jaw softly. He offered her his neck, and it got better and better, Buffy clamping down seriously now, it was almost like being nipped at by a fellow vampire, and yes, she was near his jugular now, this was going to be so good, his cock was straining towards the sky here, and he groaned something encouraging, but then she stopped. Rolled off him and lay down as far away from him as she could.
He sighed. He knew as only a vampire could that she'd been enjoying it just as much as he had. But apparently a line had been crossed already, and not even a drop of blood in play yet.
"Buffy…"
She lay rigid, her hands gripping her own upper arms tightly. He stroked a tense shoulder with one finger.
"C'mere, love, let me hold you," he implored her softly. "Talk to me."
"I'm afraid," Buffy said in a very small voice.
Spike kept mum.
"I'm afraid of me. You know I can't be her again." She cast huge eyes at him. "Please."
He gathered her to him. "Shh. I won't let you. But it's not about hurting me, Buffy. It's about love. It's about consent. As long as you love me, nothing you do to me during sex would ever hurt me."
She looked doubtful. "I went too far before."
"Yeah, you did. But even then, I could have fought back. Defended myself. It doesn't matter at all, love. Now's different. Just let it go, Buffy. It's fine."
**********
Willow led them straight to one of Sunnydale's many graveyards, Eternal Hunting Grounds. The last rays of the evening sun caught the green grass and the hundreds of brilliant red flowers that were dotting it in a wash of golden light. The effect was unearthly; all colors seemed too vivid to be real. The disorderly group of people slowly came to a halt, transfixed by the sight. Then the sun dipped behind the trees and the cemetery was immediately shrouded in dusk. The temperature dropped sharply.
"What pretty flowers," one of the Potentials remarked. Spike didn't even know her name.
Willow bent over to pluck one. She gave a low scream and jumped back, bumping into Buffy.
"Will? Willow, what is it?" Buffy said, and pushed herself forward to check out what had alarmed Willow. Willow stood retching, unable to speak.
Buffy hunkered down and stretched her hand out to the shiny red object. Spike, who'd been waiting in the car for the sun to set, came running up to help her. He felt her breath hitch and her heart start to hammer.
"Spike – look – it's a hand…"
The scent of fresh blood, Andrew's blood, assaulted his nose while he was still dozens of feet away. He skidded down on his knees next to Buffy and examined the bloody hand gingerly. It was in fact only a part of a hand, two fingers and some torn hunks of flesh, a shard of bone gleaming whitely under the layer of brilliant red fluid.
Willow came up to them, fingers pinching her nose shut.
"Buffy, did you see all those flowers? The red flowers? They must all be pieces of…someone."
"Andrew," Spike said quietly.
"You sure?" Buffy said.
"Yeah."
His demon kept quiet, in spite of the bloody scent. He squeezed her upper arm softly and started striding ahead, knowing he was the one best qualified to find all the bits and pieces. After discovering several more parts, ears, intestines, and indefinable bits of muscle, he returned to the group of nervously chattering girls.
"Willow? Can you do anything with this?" Buffy asked.
Willow nodded, still pretty green about the gills. "Yeah. If we get all of ….it, and I hurry, I might be able to put it back together again."
Xander came walking up with his hands full of bulky stuff. He let it drop to the ground, and it was revealed to be a pile of plastic bags and a packet of disposable gloves.
At Spike's look, he said, "Always got these lying in the back of the car, man, you never know when you need it."
"Good thinking," Spike said. Xander looked oddly at him, then shook his head and started doling out bags and gloves.
A couple of girls protested. "You can't mean to make us pick up body parts. It's icky!"
"Stop whining," Buffy said. "Being a Slayer means doing icky stuff all the time. Not all demons die neatly in a bag of dust; I'm usually up to my elbows in gore."
"Yeah, remember when you stuck your finger in the Gnarls' eye? That was ew!" Xander said.
"Don't we lead wicked, nasty lives," Faith said with a shrug, and walked purposefully to a bloody clump of something close by. "Buffy? Do you want me to just chuck it all in a bag or do you want it like, sorted?"
Willow's face sank for a moment, but after a moment, she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. "Let's just do it quickly and leaving the sorting for later. It's almost dark, we need to find it all. Spike?"
"Follow me," he said resignedly.
The next hours were like a strange kind of nightmare. It wasn't even scary, just yucky, and boring. The girls fell silent during their unpleasant tasks, and when at last Spike and Willow declared it done, even Buffy and Faith were bone-tired of all the bending and picking-up.
Practical Xander had spread a plastic sheet in the basement and everybody had dumped his or her bag on it. Giles came clambering down stiffly, and was visibly upset by their gruesome shopping-bag collection. He wrinkled his nose at the smell.
"This is Andrew, Dawn told me?"
"Let's hope it's all of him," Willow said matter-of-factly, and Spike shivered a bit at her tone. No more geeky enthusiastic Willow with her high, girlish voice. This sober, low-voice woman would do what she had to.
"I wish I could help," Giles said politely, but there seemed to be a wistfulness.
Willow lifted her head, and again Spike felt shivers travel down his spine. "You can, Giles," she said in a silky tone. "Just hold my hand when I ask you to, and you'll be able to give me power."
Spike could see Buffy didn't particularly like it. "Giles is way too wonky to be used like that, Will. Ask a couple of the girls. Don't forget. People didn't like not being asked."
Willow bit her lip, but nodded in assent.
On Willow's request, they weighed the bloody bags full of Andrew. A hundred pounds of him were left. No one knew how much he had weighed, before, but it couldn't be enough. Then there was sorting. Bones on one heap, intestines on another, brains carefully apart in a salad bowl, undefined bits on the right.
The older Scoobies had taken on the sorting duties themselves, to spare the younger girls' feelings. Apart from Dawn, they had all been glad to settle for TV and popcorn instead. Dawn insisted on being there.
"Andrew was kind of my friend, okay!"
Buffy raised her eyebrows. "Friend? You do know what he did to his best friend, huh?"
"Sometimes he was nice to me," Dawn said stubbornly.
"Well, if you insist!" Buffy replied with a way too cheerful smile. Dawn was given the task of sorting the bones, as it would come in handy for Biology class. It was kind of fascinating to see the skeleton take shape.
"Why isn't it white, like normal skeletons?" Dawn asked.
""Cause we didn't boil it and scrape off all the bits of flesh," Spike answered.
"Ew. Why did I even ask?" Dawn sighed.
Willow was staring at the bowl full of grayish pink brains with a pensive look.
"What is it, Will? You look like you have a brilliant plan," Buffy said.
"Well, I do. I think," Willow said. "I'm thinking of kind of straining these brains with magic to distill Giles' knowledge."
"Didn't that just disappear when Andrew died?"
"Probably not," Willow said. "Knowledge is recorded in the brains in a physical way, even if we don't know exactly how. Magic might get it out. You know, like Spike's demon lets him use William's brain. That's really just as dead, of course."
"Ew," Buffy and Dawn said in unison.
"Thank you, Willow, TMI," Spike said pointedly.
"You see?" Willow went on unfazed. "It even lets him absorb new knowledge, like the acronym TMI. Or how to use the microwave."
"Will you stop talking about my brain!" Spike said irritably.
A wicked look from Buffy sent the blood rushing away from his brain anyway.
"There's only one drawback," Willow said. "I'm not sure if after the straining there is going to be any kind of brain left for Andrew."
A thoughtful silence fell.
"I'm thinking Giles is worth more to us than Andrew is. We like him better, and we've known him way longer," Willow started.
"Andrew's a little worm," Xander said. "I vote for Giles."
"Not so quick, people. Andrew's a human being, same as you. You owe it to him to try, at least," Spike protested.
"I can't believe you , Xander," Dawn said. "He's on a mission of redemption!"
Xander snorted, "Yeah, right, like that makes any difference! Once a murderer, always a…" His voice trailed off as his eyes met several pairs of raised eyebrows. "Oh. Yeah, sure. Redemption is important. And people should be given the chance, and be supported. Oh, please, Willow, it's just different because you're my friend, okay?"
"We're not mentioning Anya, are we, Dawn?" Buffy said.
"No way," Dawn said, returning her attention to a curved piece of chewed-looking bone, with tatters of flesh hanging off it. "Or Spike. Or Faith. No way."
"Enough already, girls. I'm duly chastised. I say, go, to saving Andrew. I just don't know if I can. Not as if a hundred pounds of flesh is enough to make a new Andrew. And not as if I could bring him back to life, right? I can assemble him, the rest would be up to Artemis!" Willow said.
Buffy looked stricken. "I know. But we can't just leave it at that. We have to try!"
"Of course I'll try, Buffy. I just don't know if it'll be enough."
"I'm done," Dawn announced after a while. "I'm gonna like hog the bathroom for three hours to get the icky zombie stuff off me."
"Nowhere near zombie yet, Dawnie. Andrew here's still fresher than your average pork chop, I'll have you know," Spike said casually.
"Spike!" Dawn screeched and ran for the stairs. "Gross!"
Spike shrugged and ambled over to Dawn's skeleton project. With a sigh, he exchanged a shoulder blade and a piece of pelvic bone, and started checking the whole thing. "Not much they teach kids in school these days, Buffy. If we put the poor fellow back like that he'd never walk again."
"So, Spike, you mean middle school in medieval England had a comprehensive bone assembly curriculum?" Xander was clearly gearing up for a verbal kill.
"Well, no, Harris," Spike said, and let his eyes travel from his neck to his crotch, "got my anatomical savvy in a more hands-on manner, if you know what I mean." He really had to stop getting Harris' back up, but it was so easy.
They distributed the piles of sorted Andrew over the fridges in the kitchen and the basement. Willow buried herself deeply in magic possibilities, and the others hung around the house in something resembling leisure. Buffy and Spike tried to settle down in front of the television, and for a moment there was domestic bliss, as Spike felt the hot tense body nestled against him start to relax under his hands. Within minutes, however, Buffy's tension sprang back into tight coils, and she jumped up from their cozy place on the couch and started doing frenetic chores.
After a few more moments of prime time television, Spike heaved himself up out of the cushions and went in pursuit of clean laundry. Coming down the basement steps with a basket full of dirty laundry on his hips, he surprised Giles, who was staring intently at the bowl of brains. He'd lifted off the cling film and was about to poke a tentative finger in the pinkish mass.
"I suggest those brains would be better off refrigerated, Rupert," Spike said, and started putting black clothes in the washer.
Giles gave a small cry of surprise and jerked his hand back as if stung. "You! What would you know about it, Spike? William the Bloody!"
"Been reading up on me some more?" Spike said, and set the washer for a short cycle. He straightened, and turned into Giles' accusing stare.
"What?"
"I know I don't remember every nuance, but I do know that the emotions I feel are real. Every fiber of my being screams at me to take you out of Buffy's life. You should have left when you had the soul, when you could still feel remorse. Now, of course, you'll stay, and leech off her like the parasite you are!" Giles' voice trembled with passion, and he was getting very red in the face.
"I think, Rupert, that you should put off making statements like this until after we've restored your brain. You're not playing with a full deck right now." Internally, Spike gave himself a pat of approval at his restraint.
"I'll give you a full deck!" When Giles stepped up at him, fists balled, Spike marveled at the self-deception that could induce him to think he could take a vampire, in his condition, with bare fists.
"Oh, Rupert, sod off, will you? Not now." He was really getting tired of this. Perhaps they could chain Giles in the basement, to keep him from doing harm?
Giles kept coming, oblivious to anything, and Spike fended him off easily, trying not to hurt the poor man too much.
"Just stop it, guys! This isn't gonna solve anything!" Buffy in General-mode, just what everyone needed.
"Faith, why don't you take out Spike for patrol, and I'll have a talk with Giles. " She practically shut the door in his face.
Fuming inwardly, Faith and Spike made their way across town to the first cemetery. He could feel Faith's eyes on him from time to time, but he was determined not to open up to her. None of her business, even if Buffy treated him like a dog just now. "Take Spike out!" Indeed. "We need to take Spike out for a walk, dad, he picked a fight and keeps sniffing and humping the Slayer."
His anger cooled rapidly. Buffy knew he wouldn't hurt Giles. She just needed some time with the poor old git to calm him down, and, he hoped, chain him up for his own good.
He could hear the swishing sounds Faith's jeaned legs made when she walked. It was very distracting. He tried to walk in front of her, so he wouldn't see the way her hips swayed and her buttocks bunched as she walked. There was such a different feel about her. From what he heard, she couldn't be that much younger than Buffy, but Buffy didn't jump off gravestone with a squeal anymore, or balance on the edges of sidewalks, giggling, with milling arms. If she ever had, of course, not that he would know. Maybe he could ask Willow what she'd been like when younger. Yeah, like they had such a great friendship thing going.
They met vamps. They dusted them with speed and efficiency. Nothing special going on. When they were attacked by six huge Fyarls, the fun really got going. It took them at least ten minutes to kill all six, greatly helped and hindered both by that fact that at least three huge bodies at a time were trying to get to two smaller ones.
This was the life, they were both laughing, gasping for breath, elated at the successful kill. Both buzzing with the same special need to relieve the tension after a good fight, that only vampires and Slayers could share. Their eyes met and before Spike could formulate any kind of thought Faith had him pressed up against a tomb, arms pinned above his head, kissing him ferociously.
Oh, Jesus, this was really the wrong Slayer to go on patrol with. For a moment, he gave in because of their shared victory, but it just didn't feel right, although it did.
Faith let go of his mouth and ground one hand in his groin.
"Hot vampire on a stick," she panted. "I'd forgotten how good it was with Angel. D'you think vampires are the ultimate turn-on for all slayers?"
Incoherent anger at Angel and what he'd been to Buffy gave Spike enough extra edge to make him wrench loose and push off Faith.
"What are you trying to do? Get back at Buffy or something?" He started walking away.
"What?" Faith laughed. "Don't tell me you weren't having fun, lover boy. I know wood when I feel it"
"So? I get a little hot and bothered after a fight, same as you. Doesn't mean I'm ready to jump the nearest warm body."
Faith caught up with him. "So, you and Buffy are all serious and stuff?"
"None of your business," he ground out. Damn that girl.
"How did it all happen, Spike? You got cursed with a soul and she fell for you? After you'd been her chipped enemy for years or something?"
"Why don't you ask Buffy?"
She laughed that tainted smoky laugh of hers, throwing him a come-hither look from behind her snaky locks and he just managed not to lose it and give in to the desire to hit her again.
"Yeah, right, like B. would tell me anything. We're not exactly friends, Spike." Not a come-hither look then. She just had her looks stacked against her. A good thing he hadn't hit her.
"Sounds as if she has plenty of reason for that, Faith."
"Fair enough. It's just that I, you know, heard what Willow did, and you're a vampire, and it's as if everybody gets forgiven by Buffy except me. Angel's the only one who ever listened to me, and when I saw him in LA he was, well, I wasn't his main priority."
Terror and madness are his priority, Spike might have said. Power and other people's pain are what Angelus likes best. He heard other things in her voice, though. Angelus knew how to sucker in the Slayers, didn't he? Made this girl go to prison and pay her penance. Bloody hypocrite. As if what she'd done, whatever it was, could be a fraction of what Angelus himself had done over the years. You didn't catch him going off to prison, did you? He got to play the hero.
Instead, he said: "Haven't seen Angel in years, pet. Imagine he might be a bit busy from what I heard. Took me long enough to get forgiven by Buffy, Faith. You can't expect it overnight."
She looked up at him expectantly with her wicked deep wine-dark eyes, like Dru, the damage down there of a different kind, though not half so deep nor so irrevocable as with his princess. Was he now supposed to bond with her as well? Evil Anonymous?
"Just do your part, show 'em you mean it, and they'll come round. You're human, after all," he said.
"Thanks," she said, her voice sarcastic, but he knew all about defense mechanisms.
"Buffy understands more than you think about the lure of darkness Slayers feel, you know," he said, and then for a moment wished he hadn't. Buffy's business after all. "She might understand more in retrospect than you ever imagined." When he heard himself say this, he had a minor epiphany. It might not help Faith, but it sure might help Buffy talk to someone who was part demon herself.
"Hmm."
They finished the rest of the patrol in companionable silence.
Buffy was in the kitchen, watching water come to the boil with a faraway expression on her face. He grabbed hold of her and rumbled softly against her fragrant neck, "Buffy, my love, I want you upstairs, now." She was sweet and pliant under his hands, like taffy, and warmed up in seconds.
"Patrolling urges?" she said, with understanding looks.
"Yeah…"
Most of his concentration was on his own dick and the Slayer's ass moving on the stairs, but somewhere deep inside a little voice was commenting that Buffy really liked this forcefulness. Buffy liked being coerced a little by the man she loved. How about that?
TBC